Columnist Fiona Phillips reckons Kylie could do with a few lessons off the Girl Guides for how to build her self image without getting her kit off

As a teenager, I hated myself. My “puppy fat”. My blonde hair which had cruelly turned to a grubby mouse. My out of control body. My spots. Everything about me.

And that was in a relatively innocent age, when, if watching TV with your parents, an on-screen kiss was the height of embarrassment; when ­low-level porn meant top-shelf magazines or grubby videos.

And problems, such as whether to kiss a boy on the first date, were dealt with by Cathy and Claire on the back page of Jackie magazine.

I was a Girl Guide then, too; doing my duty to God and all that, but still hating myself and wishing I looked like Olivia Newton John in Grease.

So what’s changed? Where do I start? Social media, 24-hour television, easy access to internet porn, suicide websites, size zero, cosmetic surgery, the “you have to be perfect” mentality.

It affects us all, but ­particularly self-hating ­teenagers. And especially girls. That’s why I’d like to rejoin the Guides, who’ve introduced a “Free Being Me” badge.

To attain it, girls will learn about unattainable body types, beauty myths and the trickery of airbrushing. Chief Guide Gill Slocombe says she hopes it’ll arm girls to develop into “happy, self-confident young women ready to take on the world... and become ­unstoppable”. Go Gill!

Now then, I wonder if our Gill could have a word with Kylie, who this week posted footage of her new video on YouTube to promote her single Sexercize.

A greased-up, writhing Kylie, dressed in white leotard and red stilettos, worked her way around a gym horse like nothing I recall seeing while wearing my green, brushed cotton PE pants.

Good for her; she’s fit, she’s in control; she’s her own woman.

So why the need to sell herself as a soft porn star?

As though all her achievements, her worth, are based on her “hotness”?

Fans reacted to the footage, with one saying: “When I see 20-year-olds doing this I am less shocked because I assume their brain is still growing. When I see a woman over 40 doing this I think ‘silly woman, never learned a thing’.”

Please can Kylie have a word with a Patrol Leader and get herself signed up, so she can finally feel Free Being Herself.

As tears go by

It was only when I sat down for a much-prized interview with Mick Jagger in New York some years ago that the penny dropped as to why women are putty in his hands.

His sensitivity, thoughtfulness and intelligence combined with his consideration and respect, all aligned with that famous crinkly smile was a mesmerising shot of realisation.

L’Wren Scott, who committed suicide in her New York apartment on Monday, aged just 49, must have been a very special lady.

Distraught mum Marie Johnson says she cannot leave the house after undergoing an eyebrow tattoo bought as a Mother’s Day present

Brow beaten

When Marie Johnson booked an appointment to have her thinning eyebrows tattooed, she had in mind “something elegant and light brown”.

What she got is something that she reckons has left her looking like a cross between “a clown and a drag queen”.

Much safer, then, to do what I did as a teenager: shave them off, redraw with black felt-tip pen and stay out of the rain – a downpour sent rivers of black ink cascading down my face.

Not a good look, especially when hoping to get spotted and whisked away by Donny Osmond.

Tell Maggie's Den what to do with bingo duty

If we mislaid our gran when I was little, mum and I would head to the local bingo hall, where, sure enough, there she’d be, dressed up to the nines in her astrakhan coat, concentration etched on her face, while occasionally nudging her best mate, Queenie, with excitement.

My gran brought up three kids on her own, while my granddad served in the Army; she saw relatives die down the Yorkshire mines; she worked all her life.

She would have told George Osborne exactly what to do with his patronising reduction of bingo duty.

Here's an apple for teacher

On Wednesday, my children will be off school because of striking teachers, which is a pain in the backside.

Despite that, I’m fully behind the action by staff who are over-worked, under-appreciated and under attack.

Teachers work a 60-hour week, trying to steer pupils through constant exam and curriculum changes and increased bureaucracy while dealing with the unthinkable fact that the Department of Education seems to despise them.

Morale is at an all-time low. For this they’ve been told to be grateful that their pay has been frozen; that they’re to be put, like naughty kids, on performance-related salaries and that they’ll have to work until 68 to gain a full pension.

All this while 40% of teachers quit in the first five years. And teacher suicide rates have risen by 80% That’s why I’m awarding a gold star to Wednesday’s strike.